Types and explanations of conformity

• Define conformity

  A change in a person's behaviour/ opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people
• What are the types of conformity?

  Compliance, identification and internalisation
• What is compliance?

  A superficial & temporary change, where one outwardly goes along with the majority viewpoint but privately disagrees

  Does not conform w/o presence of the group

  E.g. swearing, smoking, supporting a football team
• What is identification?

  Where we act in the same way as a group because we value it and want to be a part of it

  Publically change opinions, even if we don't neccessarily agree w/ everything the group represents

  E.g. soldiers agree w/ what army represents & wear uniform but may go home & disagree w/ other concepts of the army
• What is internalisation?

  Where we take on majority view because we genuinely accept it, permanent change even when group is not present

  E.g. converting to a religion, becoming vegan
• What are the explanations for conformity?

  NSI - Normative social influence

  ISI - Informative social influence
• What is NSI?

  When a person conforms in order to be accepted and belong to group

  Conform to receive social approval or avoid social rejection

  Don't want to break social norms of the group

  Emotional process

  More common with friends/ everyday scenarios (most concerned for approval)
• What is ISI?

  Conforming because you believe the group has the correct information (conforming to be right)

  Most common in ambiguous scenarios/ times of chaos as ppl tend to revert to the expert

  Cognitive process

  More common in new/ unfamiliar environments
• Who conducted research into ISI?

  Jenness' jellybean study
• What were the aims of Jenness' jellybean study?

  To further investigate how humans conform based on the behaviour of those surrounding them
• What were the procedures of Jenness' jellybean study?

  • 101 psychology students
  • Asked each person to individually estimate how many beans were in a glass bottle
  • Then separated into groups of 3 o discuss answers
  • Each group then made an estimate
  • Ppts then asked to give a second individual estimate
• What were the findings of Jenness' study?

  • Almost all ppts changed from original answer
  • On average male ppts changed by 256 beans
  • Female ppts changed by 382 beans
• Who conducted research into NSI?

  Asch